A point of pride for many comedians — the evidence that they’ve truly made it — is when they can take material lovingly workshopped during dozens of live shows and turn it into a definitive expression of who they are as a comic… and maybe even as a person. The platforms for distributing recorded stand-up have evolved dramatically since the earliest days of media, with literal vinyl records now replaced by, increasingly, taped specials released on Netflix.
On November 1st, 2013, Netflix released its first stand-up special — Aziz Ansari: Buried Alive — and has since launched over 350 specials, along with the Netflix Is a Joke festival showcasing live performances (a 2024 edition is in the works). Other platforms for stand-up of course exist, but the streamer’s impact on the comedy world cannot be underestimated today; during his 2019 Netflix special One Show Fits All, comedian Gabriel Iglesias literally refers to Netflix as “the people that replaced Comedy Central.”
The below represents just some of the stellar voices who battle the algorithm to be funny for strangers, including perhaps some talents you might not be familiar with alongside the clear classics. This includes one honorable mention that may not fit perfectly with the idea of a stand-up special, but does represent how a Netflix special can be more than just comedy — it can altogether redefine how we think about comedy.
— Liz Shannon Miller
Senior Entertainment Editor
Ali Wong: Baby Cobra (May 6th, 2016)
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From the beginning Netflix tried to bring huge stars to its stand-up roster, but it hadn’t produced a big breakout of its own until Mother’s Day, 2016. With the release of Baby Cobra, a seven-months pregnant Ali Wong went from a mostly anonymous writer on Fresh Off the Boat to the chapped, cramped, and horny voice of a new generation of moms. Whether she’s mining resentment at the easy life of husbands or yawning at how procreational sex becomes just another chore, her audience isn’t just laughing, they are wheezing with recognition. Everyone who watched Baby Cobra felt the truth in her filthy jokes, and Wong became a household name nearly overnight. — Wren Graves
Gabriel Iglesias: I’m Sorry for What I Said When I Was Hungry (December 20th, 2016)
The Fluffy-est comedian on this list (which is to say, the only comedian on this list whose nickname is Fluffy) often performs live shows that go for hours and hours. It’s an approach that works for him, because his fans love him. There are waves and waves of that love to be felt in I’m Sorry for What I Said When I Was Hungry, his first special for Netflix, and one that captures his intense gift for audience engagement, drawing a stadium-sized crowd into the most intimate details of his stories. The stories are fun, but it’s the ease with which he builds a relationship with attendees right from the start of this special which demonstrates how he’s become one of the world’s most popular stand-ups. — L.S. Miller
John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City (May 1st, 2018)
While John Mulaney has shared three really stellar specials on Netflix, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City is perhaps the best of the bunch. With extremely minimal set dressing and his favorite suit pressed, Mulaney took to the stage for an hour with a truly impeccable flow — it’s hard to even identify the points between bits and stories. With that being said, there are a handful of gems that still rise to the top, with “horse loose in a hospital” being one of the best pieces of comedy revolving around the Trump era. Populated with memorable, larger-than-life characters like Detective J.J. Bittenbinder and always underscored by Mulaney’s self-deprecating, observational demeanor, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City more than lives up to its name. It’s a thing of beauty. — Mary Siroky
Hannah Gadsby: Nanette (June 19th, 2018)
The debut of Nanette was so seismic that for a little while there, people were fighting over whether it even counted as stand-up comedy. A few years later, no one is questioning Hannah Gadsby’s raw, angry, and yet still quite funny exploration of what it means to do comedy as an LGBTQ+ non-binary person. (Well, maybe some people are, but those are podcasts no one needs to listen to.) By speaking frankly about their own experiences, Gadsby pokes at the sort of sacred cows that stand-up itself was invented to explore, and while, yes, at times the humor is muted by the rage, it’s still a profoundly affecting special, by one of modern comedy’s most necessary voices. — L.S. Miller
Seth Meyers: Lobby Baby (November 5th, 2019)
Beyond just being a very smart, personal, and entertaining hour of stand-up, the Late Night host’s sole Netflix special to date played with Netflix technology in a surprising and wonderfully funny way. As one might expect, some of Seth Meyers’ material is political in nature, but because this special was released in 2019, Trump joke fatigue was very real. So a literal “Skip Politics” button appears on screen when Meyers reaches that point of his set, and it does quite literally skip you over a seven-minute chunk of the show. It’s worth watching those seven minutes, but it’s also worth hitting the Skip Politics button beforehand as well — because Meyers knows just how to incorporate it into the humor of the set. — L.S. Miller
